Don’t confuse PM Modi, convince him for open debate with me: Rahul Gandhi to Amit Shah

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has also said the Prime Minister should come forward and face the questions on vote theft that the nation was posing

Updated - November 07, 2026 09:29 am IST - New Delhi

Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi. File. | Photo Credit: The Hindu

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday (November 6, 2026) said Home Minister Amit Shah should not confuse Prime Minister Narendra Modi and instead should convince the PM to have an open debate with him on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

Mr. Gandhi shared a video montage contrasting Mr. Shah’s remarks in Parliament in December last year that a debate on the SIR of electoral rolls cannot take place in the two Houses with his comments on Thursday (November 5, 2026) that the government is open to convening a special session of Parliament to discuss the SIR.

In a post in Hindi, Mr. Gandhi said, “Amit Shah ji, don’t confuse Modi ji. Just convince him to have an open debate with me. Any platform, any time.”

“Daro Mat (Do not be scared),” the leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Lok Sabha said.

Tagging Mr. Gandhi’s post, Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh also took a dig at Modi.

“The PM can also use a teleprompter,” he said.

Mr. Gandhi has been repeatedly daring Prime Minister Modi to debate with him openly. The former Congress president has “guaranteed” that it would be proven in five minutes that the PM was a traitor.

“Let’s debate right there on Adani ji’s NDTV, Mr Modi. The platform is yours, the judge is yours too — be it Adani ji or Mohan Bhagwat ji. I guarantee it — I’ll prove in just 5 minutes that Narendra Modi is a ‘deshdrohi’ (traitor),” Mr. Gandhi said in a post in Hindi on X on Wednesday (November 4, 2026).

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge has also said the Prime Minister should come forward and face the questions on vote theft that the nation was posing.

The BJP leaders have scoffed at Mr. Gandhi’s challenge. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that while Mr. Gandhi is asking the PM to choose the venue for a debate, there already exists one in Parliament and reminded him that he happens to be the LoP in the Lok Sabha and needs to show some seriousness and responsibility.

Earlier on Tuesday (November 3, 2026), Mr. Gandhi had challenged Modi to an open debate on his charge that the “opposition is anti-national” and asked why the Prime Minister has not filed a defamation case against him over his “foreign connections” allegation.

He had accused Modi of occupying the PM’s chair with “foreign help”, within a day of his earlier challenge for an open debate with the prime minister for accusing the opposition of taking foreign help to destabilise the country.

Published - November 07, 2026 09:28 am IST

Narendra Modi / Amit Shah / Rahul Gandhi

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